People living in the most deprived parts of England and Wales are more than twice as likely to succumb to avoidable deaths than are those living in the most well-off areas, according to a story by May Bulman for The Independent citing new statistics.

Smoking is said to be a likely contributor to the higher rates of avoidable deaths in deprived regions.

Bulman said that figures collated by the Office of National Statistics (ONS) showed that in areas with the highest levels of social deprivation there were 18,794 deaths from causes that were considered avoidable, compared with 7,756 in the least-deprived areas. It was not clear what period these figures referred to.

The ONS report comes four years after Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt said there was “shocking” local variation in ‘early death rates’ which could “not continue unchecked”.

But the new figures appear to indicate that social deprivation is still closely linked to deaths that could have been avoided with timely and effective public health interventions.